It is fair to say that the 2024-2025 Eredivisie campaign will go down as one that Ajax supporters would rather forget. The club was within minutes of all but typing up the top-flight total, playing away to Groningen in the penultimate game of the season, having seen their opposition be reduced to ten men, only to concede a goal in the ninth minute of stoppage time that handed the initiative to PSV Eindhoven.
Now it has emerged that the club’s manager will depart this summer, meaning that they’re going to need to bring in someone else for the 2025-2026 season.
What’s Happened?
In the summer of 2024, Ajax needed a new manager, having struggled to find a successful replacement for Erik ten Hag after he left the club in 2022 to become Manchester United manager. Having seen John Heitinga, Hedwiges Maduro and John van ’t Schip taking on the role in an interim manner, a decision was taken to appoint Francesco Farioli for the 2024-25 campaign. For a time, it looked as though it was an inspired move, with the Italian having impressed at Nice a year earlier. He had signed a three-year deal with the Amsterdam club and everyone seemed happy.
It was the first time that Ajax had brought in a foreign coach since Morten Olsen had won the Eredivisie in the 1997-1998 season, with Farioli putting his defensive coaching strengths to good use in solidifying things at the back in the wake of Ajax’s nightmare season the year before. The club became organised and took the top-flight lead in the March of 2025, being nine points clear of PSV Eindhoven after a win there with just seven games remaining. A collapse ensued, allowing the Eindhoven side to win the league on the final day of the season and break Ajax’s hearts in the process.
@the_forty_four Wout Weghorst head loss after Ajax bottle the league 😳 #fyp ♬ original sound – Funny Sound Effects
In the wake of the final match of the campaign, Farioli was visibly upset, as were the rest of the club’s players. He stated that he had no regrets of how he’d handled the season, in spite of the dramatic manner in which the club had thrown away the Eredivisie title. It seemed as though he was likely to stay in his position, but rumours soon emerged of an escalation of tensions between him and the Ajax executive board. There were, it was said, disagreements over the tactics used as well as transfer plans. As a result, it was announced on the 19th of May that Farioli had decided to leave Ajax.
Differences in Principles
The Technical Director of Ajax, Alex Kroes, said that he found the news of Farioli’s departure ‘incredibly disappointing’. He made reference to the ‘intense season’ that had been ‘filled with many memorable moments’, as well as the fact that the club’s goal of getting back into the Champions League for the following season had been achieved. He also pointed out that Farioli had been a key part of ‘enhancing the high-performance culture’ at the club, fearing the fact that what was likely to be a ‘challenging transfer window’ had become even tougher with the announcement.
For his part, Farioli said that his aim when he took on the role of head coach at the Johan Cruyff ArenA was to bring Ajax ‘back to where it belongs’, which had been achieved by getting the club into the Champions League. He and his backroom staff also wanted to ‘bring new energy to the whole Ajax community’, citing the fact that it had been an ‘absolute privilege’ to be the club’s first-ever Italian coach as well as the first non-Dutch one since the 1997-1998 Eredivisie season. He was, he said, delighted to have ‘earned the respect and support from Ajax fans’ throughout the year.
Francesco Farioli ❤️
— AFC Ajax (@afc-ajax.bsky.social) May 18, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Although, he said, ‘the management and I have the same goals for the future of Ajax’, the problem is that they have ‘different visions and timeframes’ for how those goals should be achieved. Ultimately, in the eyes of Farioli, there is a ‘difference in the principles and foundations of the project’ that means that he felt that he had no choice but to walk away. There have been rumours that he might be one of the names on the list to replace Ange Postecoglou as the Tottenham Hotspur manager, whilst quite where it leaves Ajax in terms of the management team remains to be seen.